


don't open your eyes just yet

by raven_aorla



Series: But Now I've Got You [1]
Category: James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: 00Q - Freeform, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rape Recovery, Whump, also featuring helpful BAMF Thai lesbians, h/c, just healing!trust, no healing!cock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-13
Updated: 2012-11-28
Packaged: 2017-11-18 14:03:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/561858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raven_aorla/pseuds/raven_aorla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Q is taken apart and Bond puts him back together, at least a little.</p><p>(Don't own anyone or anything, my only profit is feels, etc.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The most terrible part isn’t how Q’s elegant, slender fingers are crushed and mangled. It isn’t how his naked body is encrusted with blood and other filth, how he shivers weakly in the chill of the basement. It isn’t how soft a croak his voice is by now, throat raw from screaming, how he can barely lift up his head from where he slumps in the chair he was strapped into days ago.

No, no, the worst part is how Q’s eyes, though bereft of their glasses and marked with tear stains, meet Bond’s. And they are steady and cool as they were when the two first met. 

“007,” he says. “You’re a little late, I’m afraid.”


	2. Chapter 2

There is no moment of conscious abduction. Q simply goes to bed in his own flat one night and then wakes up naked, his hands cuffed above his head, on a cold concrete floor with a boot pressing against his throat.

Without his glasses he can't make out any of his captors' facial features, and none of them are people he would know by voice or gait. After the initial confusion passes and he comprehends the situation, he doesn't ask where he is. No point in futility. He asks, "What shall I be saying no to, then?"

One of the men - there are three - tsks at him. The boot lifts, replaced by a hand gripping his chin and a fist in his hair. He is granted a single word as his answer: "This."

So they intend to soften him up, break him down, before even telling him their demands. Unless this is being filmed as part of a larger manipulation, where he is the pawn rather than the prize. In which case there will be no demands at all, no way to bargain, no means of leverage, nothing but to endure. From more than an idly intellectual perspective the point is moot.

When his legs are drawn up and shackled, it would take breathtaking naivete for Q to not realize of what the first step in this process will consist. He will not beg if he can help it. He makes no promises for what may happen if it is too long before he is found, assuming he is.

"Three," Q murmurs.

One of the men pauses in his preparations. "What?"

Another pays him no mind, pulling on rubber gloves with a clinical snap.

"Point," Q continues, as if discussing the weather.

The one who spoke first, who seems to be the leader, undoes his own trousers and hands them to another, who folds them and places them on a table.

Q's voice has more urgency now. A little, like the tang of copper in the back of his throat. "One. Four."

The leader has cottoned on, and laughs. "Keep it up if you can, clever boy." Then kneels, gets into the right position.

"One. Five. Nine..." 

(Pause for a gasp. Not a scream. He knows he will soon, but not so early, not so early please.)

"Two - six, five...th-three..."

(He makes it to the two hundredth and fifty-sixth digit of pi before he can't recite any longer, on account of either sobbing or being choked, though the state varies.)


	3. Chapter 3

They don’t seem to know Q’s original name. At least they never call him that. He finds this a morsel of solace. Neither do they call him by his title or codename, though. As if this would give him too much dignity.

It’s usually “clever boy”, somewhat sardonic. 

He says no to the important things (telling how such and such a thing works, will you build this for us, what are the plans when are the plots where are the agents?) but says yes to smaller things, because to say no to everything would be too much.

Going to scream for me now, clever boy? (yes)

Does this hurt? (yes)

The clever boy must be thirsty. (yes) Too bad. (…yes)

I’m going to break this finger if you keep being so stubborn. (yes)

You suck cock like a whore, clever boy. Keep it up and we’ll leave that tight arse alone for now. (yes yes yes)

They alternate from physical to sexual torment, though the boundaries between the two are fuzzy. Effort is taken to stop any severe bleeding. They want him to stay conscious.

Q is no good - or at least less good - to them catatonic, blind, deaf, or mad, and he reminds himself that this means there are lines that will not be crossed. They do eventually give him some water to drink just as his vision starts darkening in earnest and he has trouble vocalizing his little monosyllables and larger cries. 

Two of the men take a break, first strapping him tightly into a metal chair before leaving him in a single guard’s custody. The leader tousles Q’s filthy and matted hair with mock affection before walking away. 

“If you start mumbling numbers again I will gag you,” the remaining one says.

Q does his best to gaze at the man balefully, but since the blurs are even worse than when this whole ordeal started he doesn’t know how effective this is. “God of our fathers, known of old, Lord of the far flung battle line, beneath whose awful hand we hold dominion over palm and pine - Lord God of hosts, be with us yet…”

He gets a slap in the face, but continues, “Lest we forget, lest we forget…”

“You little shit.” The man stuffs a handkerchief in Q’s mouth and knots a length of cord around the outside to keep him from spitting it out. 

Q slumps quietly in the chair after that, wondering if his venus flytrap back home has withered for lack of attention.


	4. Chapter 4

Q does not know how long it has been by the time his current guard, a few shifts later, falls to the floor from some kind of poisoned dart. At this point Q can't remember whether he does poisoned darts or not, or whether that was just a holdover from the previous Quartermaster. 

(007 you're a little late I'm afraid)

"Q. May I touch you?"

The field agent has never, ever sounded so gentle before, so tentative and wary. Q bites back a whimper and nods. "Can't walk, though...don't think..."

Straps coming undone (Q can come undone now, too). "Damage report."

"My fingers. And - er..." He can hardly believe he's still capable of embarrassment. "R-rectal bleeding. Scabbing. May I?"

"May you what?" Bond fishes a packet of antibacterial wipes from his pocket, jasmine-scented oddly enough, and smooths away the worst of the blood on Q's face. 

"Pass out now."

Bond gathers Q up in his arms carefully, so very carefully, and whispers, "Yes, you may."

Q wakes up once in the backseat of a car, wrapped in a blanket and lying down, held in place by two safety belts and out of the windows' view. So 007 does know how to drive without careening all over the place and wantonly destroying property. Then he realizes that if they're being so secretive and discreet -

"They're still out there." Q's words feel small even in his own bruised mouth. 

Bond turns to look at him, and promptly pulls over. "I can give you something to help you until we get to a hospital. The injection works faster but I don't blame you if you prefer the tablets."

"Injection's...fine. Quickly."

It takes some maneuvering, and Bond keeps glancing over his shoulder, but even if it's just the placebo effect the moment the needle delivers the solution Q feels something inside his chest ease. His veins grow warm and quiet. 

"We're telling the hospital that we're married. We have passports. Tourists visiting Bangkok. Your name for the next while is Quincy Cooper."

"We're in...?"

"Yes. Well, the outskirts, but the hospital I'm taking you to is." Bond wraps the needle in gauze and tucks it into a specially labeled BIOHAZARD pouch in the standard-issue MI6 first-aid kit. "As far as they will know, it was a petty personal abduction from an abusive ex-lover. Who has been extradited to face Her Majesty's justice. I'm afraid it's not safe to take you back to England yet, even if you were in better shape."

Q tries to cough. It doesn't go well. "Thank you, James."

"Fucking hell," Bond lightly squeezes Q's thankfully-undamaged shoulder in a gesture Q does not bother to analyse.

Once Bond is driving again, Q slips into relatively less pain, enough so that he can rest.


	5. Chapter 5

Thailand has some lovely hospitals, apparently. Q is given a private suite with a television and W.C. Even a pullout couch for his “husband” to sleep on while watching over him. The staff speak decent if idiosyncratic English and don’t pester them much. Though it’s possible the nurses are frightened of Bond’s intense scrutiny. Damn the man can glare.

“I assume you’ll be running off to cause mayhem,” is one of the first things Q says post-trauma surgery. He speaks slowly, still muzzy from sedative and painkillers. He hopes the agent assigned to take over the babysitting duties is one he’s worked with before.

Bond looks up from the book he’s reading. Without his glasses Q has no idea what title it is. “You assume wrong. I’ve orders to stay with you.”

“And you’re following those orders?”

“Hah.”

A horrible thought occurs to Q. “Did they send you pictures?”

“Now, Q…”

“Did they?”

Bond puts the book aside and crosses to sit on the chair beside Q’s bed. “Tell me your optical prescription, and I’ll get you a new pair of glasses made in your preferred hideous style.”

Q pulls his hands closer to his face so he can inspect the unusual sight of ten fingers in splints all at once. “I’m not a sulking teenager to be placated with gifts.”

“No,” Bond says with surprising vehemence. “You’re the bravest man I’ve ever called a colleague.”

Silence reigns for a few minutes after. 

“That as may be,” Q says after a while, sinking back into the pillows, “you’re going to have to give me something to do so we don’t start driving each other around the bend.”

“I hear there’s this thing called ‘rest’ that doctors frequently recommend after a physical ordeal,” Bond quips, but without malice. Q does not reply. ”Fine. Any ideas?”

Q considers. “If you can get us a laptop with a good wifi or 3G connection - Linux operating system, please - and a microphone, I think I may be able to talk you through the steps of downloading the most advanced voice-activated system currently available.”

“I can do that -“

“And then I’m going to dictate to you the code necessary to make it a halfway decent app that won’t make me want to tear my hair out.” 

Bond buries his face in his hands. “Delightful.”

“It’s all right; we’re going to use Perl. It’s one of the more succinct of the programming languages.”

With a rueful laugh, Bond pulls out his mobile. “I need to make some phone calls. We have a liaison with a Thai Secret Service operative who has been assigned to securely run errands - favors owed between the governments and so on - so I won’t have to leave you.”

“Mm.” Good, Q thinks. Not being left. Good.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Forgive me for the OC, though I think you may like her. Forgive me also for the gratuitous Thai-ness, though I think you may like it. I'm only half, but I do get nostalgic...
> 
> 2\. A wild Bond POV appears! It's effectiveness is unknown!
> 
> 3\. Elements of this chapter were inspired by the tumblr quote, "Legalizing gay, of course that's good, but have they ever considered WEAPONIZING gay?"
> 
> 4\. I have never, ever had such a positive and intense reaction so soon to anything I've written. I wish I could hug you all.

The Thai Secret Service agent is a pert, slender woman who boggles the mind by appearing even younger than Q. Her hair is gelled in a spiky approximation of a male teen heartthrob's, but on her it possesses an odd dignity, coupled well with a well-cut suit of light grey, in tropical weight. Very nicely polished patent-leather loafers, as well. Upon entering the room she presses her hands together in the relatively shallow "wai" gesture that is the greeting from a person to another who slightly outranks them, though not by much. This is directed at Bond. Q has his eyes shut and is swaddled in blankets. 

Bond knows from previous visits to this country that Thais neither traditionally shake hands, especially not between men and women, nor naturally kiss. It has been a source of wry chagrin from time to time. 

"Welcome," she says softly in smooth, lilting English. "I am sorry your visit is not under the happiest circumstances."

"Need help with your luggage?" Bond asks her, also low in volume, as he shuts the door. 

Q, who was giving every appearance of dozing up till now, snorts. Bond is encouraged by this display of derision. It sounds more like the Q he is used to dealing with. 

"No, thank you. Without meaning disrespect, you have a reputation, Mr. Bond, and His Majesty's government does not wish for an agent to be distracted by a foreign operative." She shrugs the large bag off her shoulders and onto the table. "Glasses according to your Quartermaster's prescription, a few books you may find instructive, three changes of clothing for someone of Q's height and weight, a pair of shoes in Q's size..." The shoes she places on the floor rather than the table as she does all other extracted objects. (Thais have hangups about feet and shoes; where they point, where they face, what they touch.) "A notebook computer according to your specifications has been acquired, but HQ is still scanning it for any possible security risks. We are treading carefully here."

Opening his eyes and sitting up as best he can, Q asks, "What should I call you?"

"Call me Nong," she said, using a rising intonation with a slight twist near the end. Bond never got the hang of the tonal languages very well, but at least he realizes the distinctions between them. "At least I think I'm Nong to you. This is the first time I've met someone from MI6 who might be able to call me Phi."

"I'm afraid I don't..."

"'Younger sibling' versus 'older sibling'," Bond explains. "A title of sorts. Suggesting she's the youngest agent they have at this level of clearance."

Nong smiles. "Why, Mr. Bond, I didn't know you knew things like that. Would you like help putting your glasses on, Q?"

"Mm, yes." Q leans forward to facilitate this, and she carefully slides them onto her face. "I don't think 007 has realized what this also suggests."

"Oh?" she asks, amused.

"If you're the youngest person they have who would be cleared to work with us, then you are likely - though not inevitably - the least or one of the least experienced. So the value in sending you would lie in some other quality of yours. Your line about 'His Majesty's government' and 'distractions', along with what I have seen firsthand in my time working with him, indicates that there is genuine worry that Bond is going to seduce any woman they send no matter how professional she tries to be. A possible solution would be to send a straight man, but since your superiors know..." here Q falters.

Bond wants badly to go back and resurrect the eleven men he killed to get to Q, so that he can kill them in a less-rushed way a second time. 

Q takes a deep breath and resumes, "I - I mean, others might conclude I may not want to deal with any new strange men with guns right now. I suppose that's...considerate. Anyway. Also the way you're dressed. Not to stereotype, but when you combine that with everything else, and the way you dismissed Bond like you dismiss men habitually? You're a lesbian. Which I cannot believe anyone else hasn't considered trying as a tactic before when choosing people to deal with this man. I might clap if I had the physical capability at the moment."

Nong laughs, demurely hiding it behind one hand. "Very quick. Very quick. Now is there anything more I can do for you gentlemen? I will of course be back with the notebook once it's ready."

"I think we're set for now. Thank you, Miss." Bond gives her a brief, stiff bow. She replies with another "wai" and leaves them.

"Don't be cross just because you've got terrible gaydar," Q says once she's gone.

"Don't be snippy just because you can't tell when I'm trying to be alluring and when I'm simply trying to be chivalrous," Bond ripostes, taking the chair next to Q's bed once more. "Also, nice deductions, Sherlock."

Q raises his eyebrows. "This is what happens when I have nothing to do. Though at least I can see now. Fetch me some water? I'm parched."

Bond crosses the room to where a small water cooler and a stack of paper cups sit, since in this country the tap water is not safe to drink. He fills it and holds it out to Q. There is an awkward moment where Q looks at the cup, then at Bond, then at his own hands and all his broken fingers. Something immensely hollow and pitiful shows in his face. "Er..."

Edging closer, Bond tilts the cup so that Q can drink from it. A drop spills onto Q's chin. "I'll go fetch a straw?"

"Call for a nurse to do it."

The desperation in Q's tone gives Bond more pause than the stipulation itself, which does make sense when it comes to erring on the side of caution. "I'm not being cavalier with your safety, but even if we aren't certain how far the conspiracy goes you would be unlikely to come to harm in the space of two -"

"Don't you fucking dare fucking leave me alone for a single fucking moment." 

"Q..."

"Fucker."

Bond puts down the cup, pulls a linen square from his breast pocket, and asks, gentle, "May I?"

Q nods, trembling. "Sorry. That was unprofessional."

Bond dabs at the spilled water. "I understand. I shouldn't have been so brusque."

"My legs itch." Refuge in petulance. 

"I'm sorry," Bond says, pulling the blankets aside to examine the twin casts. "I don't think I can do much about that."

"Then distract me?"

"I checked while you were sleeping; the television's all in Thai, though I could get some DVDs brought in. The hospital has a lending library."

Q groans. "I feel like I'm eight years old asking this, which is not an impression I enjoy cultivating, but read to me? I now can actually tell you are reading a volume of Lord Byron. Which I suppose you're trying to pull pickup lines from or something."

"Perhaps I actually like poetry, if you've considered that." But Bond's tone is mild and he fetches the book. "Any requests?"

"Anything. I never really got into Byron. That Byron. I'm a fan of his daughter."

"His daughter wrote poetry?"

"Code. The first computer code ever." Q turns his head to gaze at Bond, calmer now. "Ada Byron, Duchess of Lovelace, whose mother despised Lord Byron's philandering ways so much that she ordered Ada's tutors to teach her only maths and sciences, never poetry. She wrote programs for Charles Babbage's calculating machine, among her other groundwork in the field. There's an elegance to her notes that suggests her mother failed, in a way, and her daughter became a poet after all."

After a moment of contemplation, Bond says, "That's the most sentimental I've heard you sound."

"In the next few days as I regain appetite you're probably going to have to start hand-feeding me, so any pretense of machismo I might still have may as well be done away with." 

"A nurse could do it."

"I don't want anybody I don't know touching me if I can help it."

Bond pauses in his leafing through the volume. "Yet you trust me? You know what I do for a living." And recreation, too, though he does not say this.

Q doesn't say anything to this, but gives him absurd bespectacled doe eyes until Bond finds a poem almost at random to begin.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have had reason to be quite sad today, so I've been reading all of your lovely comments over and over and over. It's helped me get through it. Thank you. Have some more fic.

All his life Q has been plagued with nightmares about being trapped on an airplane, destination unknown, all the other passengers deaf to his panicked pleas. This one is different, though. This time, not only is he on an airplane cruising at high altitude, but he is naked and bound, his mouth sealed with tape. Everything has the blurriness of the world when he is without his glasses. By the size of the seats and the relative quiet spaciousness he intuits that this is the first class cabin. He knows the voices around him. It's  _them._ All three of them. 

"Thought you could escape us, clever boy?" asks one of them, unfastening the safety belt holding Q in place and scooping him up effortlessly. Q squirms but the man's grip is steel. 

"We're in your head now," says another, running a hand along the curve of Q's bare buttocks. "Your dear Bond may have killed us but we're going to follow you. We're going to come for you every time you fall asleep. This time you won't even have the option of giving into demands."

"Ever thought about how often and for how long even the hardiest human needs to sleep in their lifetime?" Dream-tears sting the corners of Q's dream-eyes as the leader, still seated and mostly clothed, pulls his cock out, vicious and waiting. "I won't be angry with you if you find yourself enjoying it, clever boy, but somehow I doubt you will."

Then rubber-gloved fingers probing, stretching, and Q is trying to count in prime numbers as high as he can but the thoughts keep floating away....

......

 

Bond nudging him awake. "Good God, Q, if I wasn't worried about causing you further damage I'd be shaking you."

Q blinks, steadies himself. He is no child to be coddled after night terrors. "Thank you. Glasses, please?"

Sliding them onto Q's face, Bond says, "It nearly makes me glad the jet lag has me awake at four in the morning."  
  
"Mm," Q murmurs noncommitally. Then almost immediately sags in dejection when he takes stock of his physical sensations. "I'm going to ask you to do something for me that I would rather have a tooth pulled than have to ask, but I would rather have  _all_ my teeth pulled than ask a stranger, even a professional and female stranger who does this sort of thing all the time. If you make fun of me in any way -"

"I'm not going to mock you for having basic needs. What is it?" 

After a deep breath, Q says, "I need help getting to the toilet. I also would very much like a shower after, if there is one. Is there one?"

"There is one. With a seat, even." Bond, who is as casually dressed as Q has ever seen him (not counting when for the sake of a mission he has to be digitally present during one of Bond's dalliances), in a light blue button-down shirt and crisply ironed khaki pants, rolls up his sleeves. "In any case if you did want a nurse to help you instead, the latest orders are to minimize your contact with anyone other than myself and our extensively screened Thai liaison. Which means that unless it's some medical thing beyond my abilities, this in fact is my job. If that makes you feel the slightest bit better."

It does, a little. Q looks up at Bond with gratitude that is only in a small part begrudged. "Never figured you one for the nurturing."

"Man cannot live on fighting and fucking alone," Bond comments, though his tone is soft, before pulling a folded wheelchair from under the bed and setting it up properly. "If at any point I jostle or hurt you, don't you dare try and hide it, understand me?"

"Understood. I would appreciate it if you did your best to keep this silly garment from falling off me before we get to the shower, since we're making requests?"

"Mine wasn't a request, but certainly." Bond pulls the bedcovers off Q and manuevers into a configuration where he can pick Q up and gently deposit him into the wheelchair. "This will be a little easier if you could put your arms around my neck, if you can manage that. Careful of your fingers."

"Believe me, I'm very careful of them. It's not something one forgets."

They make it to the toilet without incident other than one or two "ouches" from Q that Bond addresses with swift adjustments. Q is glad that at present he only needs to urinate. He doesn't want to dwell on how his first few bowel movements are going to feel. 

Then Bond takes off his own shirt entirely and pulls back the shower curtain, where a small white seat is moulded into the wall. "I'm sorry for this," he says.

"For what?" Q asks, his heart fluttering with nerves.

"I'm no stranger to times when it's distressing to have someone else take your clothes off when you can't do much about it."

Another puzzle piece falls into place. So this is why Bond is acting so...sweetly. All field agents are trained to expect capture and torture as a matter of course, but 007's history of no significant emotional attachments that do not end in flames and blood would mean no one who actually cared for him to comfort him after, no one to wake him from his nightmares or help him into his showers. 

Q makes the eminently foolhardy, if private, vow that if he can one day return this care and be that person, he will.

All Q says, though, is, "When I said I trusted you I meant it."

A tiny smile tugs at the corner of the Bond's lip. He explains briefly that he was provided some plastic bags and waterproof tape to wrap around Q's casts and splints so the plaster doesn't get damp, retrieves said materials, and keeps up a stream of neutral chatter and anecdotes while he goes about applying everything properly.

The shower has a detachable nozzle, so once the partially plastic-wrapped Q is propped up in his seat Bond pulls the showerhead down before he turns on the water. He tests the temperature with his own left hand, then turns the spray onto Q's knee. "Is that good?"

"A bit hotter, please. Just a bit."

"All right." Bond adjusts, tries it again.

"That's good," Q says, exhaling as if on some spiritual level he's been holding his breath for days.

Bond does not go so far as to fully smile, but his face becomes less hard and intense than it usually is. He rinses all of Q's exposed flesh with more-than-expected tenderness, though by now Q is less surprised by such things. He wets a soft cloth and turns off the shower for the time being, working the cloth over a bar of soap until it's thoroughly lathered. "Is there anywhere you don't want me to touch?"

"Provided the touch isn't sexual in any way -"

"Q, what do you take me for?" Ye gods, is Bond actually offended?

Biting his lip, Q says, "Sorry, sorry. Not to cast aspersions. I need the boundaries to be crystal clear. While I haven't heard of you ever shagging a man I know the world well enough not to assume that means you never have or never will, and though I trust you with my life and, er, virtue, the thought of you becoming excited in ways I'm not able to deal with right now does make me a little anxious."

The tension in the room eases. "If I ever have such designs on you, Q, they will be exceedingly obvious, and never when we're in such an unequal position. Clear?"

"Clear." Q actually smiles now. It's a malnourished runt of a smile but it's the most relaxed he's been since all this began. "In which case you are invited to be thorough."

So Bond runs and rubs the sudsy cloth over Q's pale skin, delicate over the many mottled bruises and more firmly wherever the initial cleanup the surgeons gave Q did not manage to fully eliminate every bit of grime. For sanitized grime is grime nonetheless. Despite the conversation they'd had and its results, Bond is hesitant at first when it comes to cleaning Q's inner thighs, his limp penis...when Bond notices a distinct bite mark on Q's scrotum, though, a snarl tears itself from his throat. "When you get back to designing weapons?" he asks with dangerous quiet.

"Yes?" Q whispers, wishing he could squeeze Bond's shoulder that is trembling in vengefulness. 

"Design something that can be employed quickly without much hands-on involvement, if I'm in a rush, but that is absolutely agonizing in the death throes it causes. So that I can sleep better at night."

"I'll see if I can get approval for it," Q replies dryly. "In the meantime, lighting candles, not cursing the darkness. Also don't forget my hair, please."

Bond emerges from his miasma of righteous anger. His eyes become unclouded once more. "Of course. I'll get the soap off your body first."

When they do get to the hair, Bond manages to astound Q with how deftly he massages the shampoo into Q's scalp, deeply and comfortingly scratching around the curls, behind his ears, every follicle attended to or so it seems. He avoids getting any of it into Q's eyes, even when washing it out with a third round of hot water.

By the time Bond has Q back in the wheelchair and is toweling him dry, Q feels solid and present again, not just a wounded ghost. "Is there anything else I can do before we both try to get some more sleep?" Bond asks.

"A cup of water would be excellent. And..." Q isn't sure whether this is a good idea at all. In the least. But wants are wants and needs are needs and if a man gives you things because he's always wanted but never had them, there is a certain debt there. "The bed may not be much more than a twin, certainly not a queen, but if you could, er, if you could...hold me?"

Bond stares at him.

Q cringes. Now he's gone and ruined everything. "Never mind. I said nothing, ignore that, it's the drugs they put me on surely..."

"I would be honored," Bond interrupts, voice full of wonder. "May I kiss you?"

"Yes," Q breathes. But instead of the lip-lock Q expects, Bond presses a kiss to a part in Q's damp, clean hair. 

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for any formatting or typographical errors; this is being composed on an iPad on a moving train.
> 
> Translations and explanations will now be at the end, due to request that I not interrupt the flow in the body of the text.

The operative who instructed the MI6 employees to call her "Nong" moves as if invisible through the doctors' and nurses' lounges, the break rooms and kitchenettes, the behind-the-scenes underbelly of the hospital. Eventually she reaches a large "supply closet" where a two chairs and a cot have been surreptitiously set up, and she is one of only two people who knows the combination to open the steel-lined door.

Nurse Rojana is waiting for her, a shawl draped over her scrubs since the air conditioning is so fierce. "Good to see you, Phi Cha." One is a title, the other a term of endearment. Rojana does not know her lover's name.

"Good to see you too, Nong Cha." Locking the door behind her, the Thai Secret Service agent places a briefcase and hefty gift-wrapped fruit basket on one of the chairs. "I need to make sure we're secure."

As the other woman searches for bugs and other devices, Rojana examines the fruit basket. "Going to a _Loy Kratong_  party after?"

"Oh, it's today, isn't it? I'd forgotten. Not like I will have the night off. Light a _Kratong_  for me, if you like."

Rojana sounds wistful. "Do you have a preferred body of water for me to send it off on?"

"The Chao Praya river. So it will pass by the Palace." Apparently satisfied they are not being watched or recorded, the agent pulls a file and a silver tube the width of a sheet of paper out of the briefcase. "Speaking of which, _suteerak,_ the royal command has come through. You are now officially His Highness on the Throne's secret agent in this hospital. Read the file silently, commit it to memory, and I will then destroy it it this hand-cranked shredder." 

It is what Rojana has been hoping and working for, but it is a weighty responsibility all the same. "Another secret from my family," she muses as she accepts the folder. 

"Even if I weren't a spy, how would they respond to knowing you were in love with a _tom?_ "

Rojana pats the cot next to the chair she occupies. "Lie down and shut your eyes while I read, Phi Cha. And when my cousin was revealed to be a  _katoey_ they still went to her university graduation. So I think me being a  _dee_ would be less upsetting than me involved in dangerous espionage."

"I see." The agent obeys her girlfriend's instuctions. "When we're done here I need to go talk to the Englishmen we're both supposed to be keeping watch over. The basket is for the hurt one."

"I took out his IV yesterday," Rojana says, absently taking the other woman's hand as she examines the classified documents. "He seems sweet. Now I am aware the other one is known as a womanizer, but I think he may be a striped-tiger."

This is met with a giggle. "Emphasis on the tiger. You should have seen the carnage..."

"Hush now, _suteerak_. I'll feel better if you take a twenty-minute nap."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loy Kratong - November holiday to celebrate the end of the rainy season. "Loy" means "to float".
> 
> Kratong - small floating lantern made of banana leaves, made to look like a lotus blossom.
> 
> suteerak - "most beloved of mine".
> 
> tom - depending on context, a trans man or a butch lesbian. Our agent means the latter.
> 
> katoey - trans woman.
> 
> dee - a femme woman who dates toms.
> 
> striped-tiger - closeted bisexual (because they have "two colours" and are camouflaged).
> 
> Thailand is the only country in Southeast Asia where it is both legal and somewhat socially tolerated to be openly queer, though prejudice still abounds and there is no marriage equality or other LGBTQ-friendly legislation.
> 
> Loy Kratong is arguably the second most wonderful Thai holiday; imagine every river, lake, and pond full of floating candlelit biodegradable lanterns, then lots of food and dancing. It is second only to Songkran, which celebrates the ending of the dry season with a three-day, public, nationwide water fight.


	9. Chapter 9

It initially took long, careful minutes for Bond to find a configuration where he could lie in bed beside Q with an arm around his thin shoulders without disturbing any of Q's injuries, and now that they are in such a human braid he doesn't want to move even if his legs are starting to tingle. Q stares straight up at the ceiling, though without his glasses it is doubtful what he sees, and when he does speak it is in a distracted murmur. The back of his head presses against Bond's chest but he seems far away.

"The sun's coming up," Q says, glancing out the window.

"So it is. Are you comfortable?"

"As could be expected." Funny enough this is when Q fidgets, seeking a better position. He grimaces as he bumps one of his fingers by accident. "I feel like I'm waiting for another shoe to drop."

"What do you mean?" Q is for quick, Bond thinks absentmindedly, glad that no one can read his mind. Q for quailing. Q for quite, quaint, quelled. Q for question. Q for quixotic and queer. Q for quality. Q for quenched.

"M didn't specifically order you to, I don't know, unofficially trauma-counsel me until I can get home, did he? I know it's unlikely but I can't shake the notion."

"If you keep expressing surprise whenever I don't act like a sociopath, I may start to have hurt feelings."

"Sorry. You do often give the impression of having no emotions but patriotism and rage."

This coaxes the first genuine laugh out of Bond in what seems like ages. "I thought I at least warranted a reputation for lust, if nothing else."

Q opens his mouth to reply to that, but then shuts it again. "I hope Nong comes back with a laptop soon."

"You were going to say something."

"Don't want to hurt your feelings."

"Touche." Bond shifts to a somewhat more mobile pose. "May I give you a backrub?"

Q raises his eyebrows, but after a moment says, "If you don't mix up what you're supposed to be doing, I'll let you give it a go."

"You are magnanimous indeed," Bond replies, teasing. "Lean forward a little."

Even though he has granted permission, Q initially tenses at the touch. But as Bond begins to work his fingers on those knotted-up ropes that pass for the younger man's shoulder muscles, Q starts melting into it, shutting his eyes and letting himself become pliant. "I don't mean to actually hurt your feelings, you know. But when you...when you are the youngest in the room, and surrounded by people who ostensibly work for or with you but could snap your neck if they were so inclined, a certain measure of jaded arrogance helps establish some..mmm....mmm...mn..."

"Now what was that?" Bond's asks so very, very quietly. (Q for quietly, or is it quietly for Q?)

"Just do that for a bit. Mm. Warn me if you're going to try anything else, though, I'd hate to bite you on reflex." Q says it like it's a joke but the waver in his words makes it clear what depths of pain and fear still lie beneath his hastily-reconstructed walls.

"I'm not going to try anything, and I'm not going to be angry at you." Q arches into a particularly strong knead, breathing in deeply.

"Those pictures they sent you must have been truly horrific."

"Don't get yourself worked up for no useful purpose. What were you going to say earlier?"

"I'm no psychologist...ooh, yes, that's right, good...but I get the impression from what I've seen that you're not actually that fond of sex for the sake of sex. It's more about using extremely attractive women as very complex stress balls."

This strikes almost too close to home, but Bond realizes full well the ridiculousness of resenting Q making him feel the slightest bit vulnerable. The poor man doesn't have the full use of any of his limbs, after all, and his more internal injuries are most likely still raw. In fact it's an incredible measure of trust that he is letting Bond have this much physical contact with him, a level of trust he is not used to being granted, in fact a level that scares him a little in their implications. "Perhaps," Bond says eventually, realizing that if he says nothing Q will be afraid he has caused offense.

Then a knock on the door. The only reason Bond doesn't spring up, gun drawn, and dart immediately to it is he is afraid of accidentally hurting Q. Instead he takes the time to unwind himself from Q's slender form, then draw the gun. He puts an index finger to his lips for Q's benefit - Q, the brat, rolls his eyes at the obviousness of the precaution - and opens the door a crack, blocking the line of fire towards Q with his body.

Agent "Nong" and a nurse are standing there, looking not particularly impressed. Nong dips her head in lieu of a _wai,_  since she has a briefcase in one hand and a large basket wrapped in opaque pink plastic cradled in her other arm, against her hip. The nurse has an array of medical equipment on a trolley. Nong begins,"Good morning, Mr. Bond. Jet lag usually makes European visitors wake early in the day, so I thought it likely you would be relatively able to have visitors. Check your messages; there should be a message from your superior proving that Nurse Rojana has been endorsed by both governments as your attending medical professional."

"You really should not let me in until you see the proof, you know," Rojana, a diminuitive pixie of a woman who nonetheless has a stern gaze, tells Bond. Her English is more halting and accented than Nong's, and in the manner of many Thais she throws tones in randomly, like she's playing a game to find out what song the sentence is from by trial and error. "You should be very careful with your friend's safety."

"Well," Bond begins, about to rejoin...

But Q calls from the bed, "I'll hazard the nurse is a lesbian too. Hurry up and confirm that she's allowed access so we can all talk properly."

Both women giggle at this. _"Nalaq,"_  Rojana comments.

Bond checks his satellite smart phone - yes, the briefing is just as Nong has stated - and opens the door wider to allow the guests in. Then, and only then, does he ask, "What does 'nalaq' mean?"  _  
_

"It means 'cute'," Nong says, breezing past Bond despite her heavy burdens he doesn't dare offer to take. Rojana follows her in a slightly more timid manner.

Locking the door, Bond returns to his chair next to Q's bed. First placing the basket on the floor, Nong produces a laptop from the briefcase, along with a charger and small flash-drive-like device labeled "3G air card," and begins setting them up. "Let me know if you have issues, though surely Q will be best at providing instruction."

Rojana has meanwhile pulled the trolley to Q's other side. "I must to check your vital. Your doctor says you may start eating today if you feel you wish to, but in small frequent meals not big. Advise you no dairy for one week and if you have trouble with toilet there is medicine that will help so it does not harm your inside injury as much. Do you prefer which arm I do blood pressure?"

Q holds out his left arm, cautious not to bump his fingers against anything. "Thank you. And I am glad that if they could only clear a doctor or a nurse and not both that it was a nurse. I had to stay in hospitals a lot as a child, enough to know nurses are more useful during the recovery period."

 _Which of us is charming a woman now?_  Bond thinks wryly. Yet it is clear that this isn't the type of flattery meant to wheedle someone into bed - well, besides the obvious factor of Q's massively handicapped state - the tone is all different. This is like the cheeping of a baby bird to persuade someone to feed it, or, more grimly, how a wolf pup will lie down and expose its neck to show how it is not a threat and needs protection. With a pang, Bond realizes that Q is feeling helpless. This is logical but he hadn't considered the scope of it before. 

As Rojana goes through the list of required tests, noting results down on a clipboard, Nong finishes setting up the laptop and slices open the pink plastic wrapping that swathes the basket. She folds the pocketknife and retuns it to a pouch on the left side of her shiny, oiled black leather belt - the right side has a gun holster - and positions the basket where Q (now wearing glasses again) can see it.

"It's a fruit basket," Q says, sounding amazed. 

"Truly you are a genius," Nong replies, deadpan.

"I've never seen a lot of these before. What's that one?" 

"Which one?" 

"Do you want me to point with my chin or something?" Q sounds like he's holding back a shriek of frustration for the sake of politeness.

"Describe it, Q _cha_?" Rojana suggests, her words mild.

Q takes a shuddering breath. "Right. Sorry. The little white things in a clear plastic bag."

"Ah yes," Nong says, picking up said bag. "Usually it is in a thick purple rind, but I paid some extra so all the fruits would be peeled and sliced. Even if you were at full ability many  _farang -_ European-descent people, that is - have trouble knowing how to approach many of the fruits. This is  _mongkut,_ mangosteen. You cannot get them outside of Southeast Asia because they cannot be shipped. There's a bag of plastic forks in here somewhere..."

Mollified, Q asks, "Are those miniature pineapples on a stick?"

"Yes! A recent hybrid, sweet. Here are a few unpeeled bananas of different types; I trust Mr. Bond knows his way around such things."

Certain entendres must be universal, Bond reflects as he sees Rojana stifle another giggle. 

By the time Nong has gone through the roster - lychee, rambutan, dragonfruit, pomelo, starfruit, jackfruit, rose apple - and even apologized for the lower quality of the ones that are not in season at the moment, Q is calm again and Rojana has finished checking all his health signs. 

"The call button will summon either myself or Rojana," Nong says as Rojana begins packing up the equipment. "Both of us will always be at the hospital for the duration of your stay, sleeping in shifts, unless our respective governments identify anyone else who can be trusted to handle this delicate matter. If one of us does not appear within eight minutes, go into emergency protocols, and if your need is such that one of us and not the other can fulfill it, we will wake the other."

Rojana seems to suddenly think of something. "There will be fireworks near the hospital tonight for Loy Kratong. If you have had time with bombs as I know you maybe have, you can find this upsetting. I thought I should warn. If you want music I can bring CDs to play on the notebook, so the noise is not so loud?"

"I think we will be fine, thank you, Nurse," Bond assures her. 

Both women give them  _wais._ "Do not hesitate to summon in any problem," Nong instructs before ushering Rojana out the door, shutting it securely behind them.

"I can order you a proper meal if you want it. There's a menu on the desk," Bond says once the Thais have left.

"Not hungry enough for that," Q replies. "I wouldn't mind trying some of those mangosteen pieces, though, even if I have to lose some of my pride..."

Without further ado Bond takes one of the small plastic forks Nong had eventually fished out and spears a silky-looking segment, offering it to Q, who blushes but eats it off the tines. He looks pleasantly surprised. "A very light flavor. You should try some."

They work their way through the basket, with sips of water in between. Bond likes the pomelo best. At one point Q says, "I feel like a combination of a quadruple amputee and a degenerate Roman emperor."

"You'll get everything back, Q."

Q does not meet Bond's gaze. "Will I?"

Things are going well until they reach the pineapple. At first Q takes a bite and nothing seems wrong, then he whimpers and barely manages to quickly chew and swallow. "What wrong?" Bond asks. 

The former frustration returns with a vengeance. "The juice - it's acidic. I bit my tongue, many times, so I wouldn't, I mean when th-th-they...and the acid in the juice, it burns..."

Bond quickly moves the basket to a safe place where he won't knock it over, and gathers Q into his arms. "You're going to be all right, Q. I'll see to it."

Q makes doubtful sounds but nestles against him, all the same.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "patriotism and rage" bit I shamelessly stole from someone else's fic, though I don't remember whose. If it's your line I promise you it's all in admiration and I will credit you when I know.
> 
> ETA - It's from the marvelous, marvelous ace!Q/Bond fic "the perks of Constancy", which you should go read here and praise and possibly worship: http://archiveofourown.org/works/559409/chapters/998226


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my girlfriend, a computer science major, who talked me through at least being able to slightly plausibly bluff my way through the coding scene. 
> 
> See endnotes re: the sequel. Yes, there will be one.

"Some water, please, before we begin."

Bond helps Q take a sip - Rojana had fetched them a whole pack of plastic straws upon request - and then opens up a browser window. "I assume you'll want to download the speech-command program first."

"Actually, no, I want to do a practice dictation first. It's already painfully obvious to me that the best product on the market is not going to be adequate, so no matter what I will have to be dictating to you a significant amount of code if I'm even to begin the project I'd like to attempt. I've no illusions that we'll get anywhere close to me being able to use it independently unless the double-oh assigned to make it safe to return home has horrifying levels of incompetence, but it's something to do..."

"Are you saying you want to torment me with something you know I'll be terrible at for no real concrete purpose?"

Q's voice goes very quiet and he stares at the curtains. "Something not being concrete and something not being real are not the same thing at all."

Bond is near-inaudible when he says, "Fuck," but Q still hears him. And pretends he doesn't. Especially when Bond then asks, contrite, "What do I do first?"

"It's not out of a desire to torment you, either."

"May I?" Bond reaches for Q with one hand.

"Where?" Q is doing his best not to shrink back but a certain amount of it is sadly instinctual. Even if it is Bond. No matter how much he tells himself that though Bond is dangerous it is to Q's _enemies_ that he is dangerous .

"Was just going to make your hair a little less like a bird's nest."

Q thaws. "If you like."

Bond smooths Q's hair into something resembling order, but runs his fingers along Q's scalp more lightly and tenderly than is strictly needed. When he returns both hands to the keyboard Q is gazing at him with a similar calm steadiness to the kind that was so chilling when Bond first found him in that basement. This time, though, it is a gaze of assessment, of analysis, rather than the final desperate barricade against complete collapse that the earlier version had been.

"One of the first things I learned to do with Perl was a tiny scrap of a program that counts the seconds up to a given threshold," Q says. "It's only a score or so lines, so it will work for a test. Click on 'Text Wrangler', no, to the right, that one, yes."

"When did you first learn how to write in Perl?" Bond asks as he complies, opening a document. "I assume you were still in diapers."

"I actually toilet-trained myself at the age of two, so no. Now, type exactly as I say. If at any point I am unclear, stop me and ask, because that will save a great deal of headache later. The colours are normal, though we won't get them until after we save."

"Colours?" Bond's voice approaches panic.

"You'll see. Hashtag. Exclamation point. Backslash. Lowercase u, lowercase s, lowercase r, backslash..."

"Wait. Slow down."

"Let me see what you typed." Q cranes his neck, Bond obliging by tilting the screen to a better angle for Q's perusal. "You missed the first backslash. Go back...007, that's not a backslash."

"I'm not sure this is a good idea."

"Maybe we should ask one of our friends to bring a projector so I can see what you're doing without you having to stop."

Bond shuts the laptop decisively. "I _know_ this isn't a good idea."

"Bond..."

"Oh for God's sake, I've seen you naked, you may as well call me James. And this isn't about actually trying to make a program, is it?"

Q does one of the best impressions of a deer caught in headlights Bond has ever seen - and Bond has among other things held at least sixty men if not more at gunpoint over his career - before slumping back into the upright curve of the bed. "No."

Bond rubs his face with his hands and puts the laptop aside, perching on the edge of Q's bed. "I'm an even worse sorry excuse for playing psychologist than you are, I'll wager, but I think you're trying to do something you know you're better at than nearly everyone else on the planet."

"...Maybe." Q rubs his left cheek against the pillow since he can't scratch it and he doesn't want to ask Bond to do it for him.

"There must be something else we can do that will make you feel better in that way. Something that won't make me angry at you against my better nature." Bond adds, after a pause, "Such as it is."

"I don't want to waste the laptop, after the effort the Thais went into making sure it was secure."

Bond thinks for a moment and then retrieves the laptop again. "I'll see what else they installed...mm..."

"Thank you, James," Q says with effort.

"For what?"

"For not making me be the one to say things all the time."

A crooked smile appears briefly on Bond's face. "You're welcome."

"Still not telling you my name, though."

"Fine. It's probably something unfortunate and embarrassing in any case, and that's the real reason you won't tell."

"Not all of us can have names that sound vaguely like actors in sadomasochistic pornography."

"Twat."

"Libertine."

Bond's new smile actually stays on his face. So does Q's. Bond tilts the screen again to show Q his new discovery. "I found a chess program. Since you were able to recite the computer code I wouldn't be surprised if you can play mental chess. I might have a chance of putting up a fight if I can see the board and you can't."

Q raises his eyebrows. "Are you sure you'll be able to put up a fight? I used to play chess blindfolded for pocket money."

"I'm not just hired muscle, you know."

"Yes, but I thought you specialized in poker."

"Eton didn't have a poker club."

"You were in a chess club?"

"President for three years." Q is the first person Bond his ever told this since MI6 hired him. It feels...nice. To share. Even a little. Tidbit for tidbit, parceling out little gems of trust.

Q has the air of someone basking in sunlight after a long period of chill. "I'll take black."

Time flies by until Rojana checks on them. "You really should eat a proper meal, even if small one, Q _cha_ ," she begins, before stopping. "Why do you have a scarf around eyes?"

"Blindfolded chess," Bond explains.

"I'm still defeating you ignominiously." Q is glad Bond did not express any surprise at him not minding being blindfolded. In fact there were times in that basement where he wished he had been. Hanging in the unhappy medium, he had not been able to distinguish faces or details of the room, but they had shown him blunt instruments and...other things...before using them on him.

"You're going to lose this one."

"I would pity your presumption if I were not busy restraining myself from laughter."

"Is that your version of quote-on-quote 'talking trash'? If so it's the most posh I've ever heard."

Rojana laughs. "I am glad you are having nice time."

"I actually could use some food," Q says, more serious now. "Take the blindfold off me, please. I want to look at the menu."

When Rojana has made sure both Englishmen have food, water, and are not dying of anything, she returns to the previously-empty hospital room she and Nong have commandeered in the name of international harmony and the King. "Striped-tiger for sure," she comments, sliding into bed beside her lover for a few precious moments before Nong has to go patrol the perimeter of the hospital to make sure all is well.

Nong wraps an arm around Rojana. "You know I'm always right about these things."

.....

At first Q thinks when he wakes to a slap on the face and a hostile blur above him that this is just another nightmare. Then he thinks that no, _this_ is real, it was the opening-up and closeness and banter and chess that was a dream, and all the nightmares are the only reality. Then, finally, he comes to the more sensible conclusion that reality does in fact contain both horror and healing. But always the chance for more horror.

"It took a lot of effort to find you again, clever boy," whispers a voice he knows (no please no). Not the leader. Bond - James - must have killed that one. But one of the other two, at least, survived. "Drugging your two bodyguards was comically easy by comparison. I advice you don't struggle and hurt yourself even more."

"I've disabled the cameras," says another man, out of Q's line of vision.

Q knows how idiotic it is that he's more upset - on the emotional rather than intellectual level, at least - by the fact that his mouth is _taped shut_ than the far more pertinent issue of a possibly-imminent repeat abduction, but it's bad enough to have nightmares imitating reality without it going the other way around too. Tears blur his vision even further as calloused hands dips under the covers to check where his various casts and splints are so they avoid causing permanent harm when they take him away. He tries not to actively sob when the hands meander more than is needful.

......

Rojana awakes to alarms and an announcement repeated in both Thai and English over the hospital PA system. "Attention. Attention. This is not a drill. We have received a terrorist threat and there have been sightings of possibly hostile individuals approaching our grounds. All security to the central office for further instructions. Meanwhile, all medical staff must care for and reassure patients. Authorities have been notified but as yet there is no clear course of action. Remain calm. This is not a drill. Remain calm. Attention. Attention."

She fights to preserve her _own_ calm. This is not one hundred percent guaranteed to be a distraction, but it is very likely. Eighty percent at least. Though Thailand's political unrest has gotten worse lately in the past few years, it has never, ever escalated into large-scale premeditated violence against such helpless victims as the sick or newly born. This a setup, hired thugs pretending to be angry protesters, because everyone will blame things on the Red Shirts versus the Yellow Shirts without looking closely. Besides, her lover is late for their change of shift - once Bond had expressed a need for sleep she had set up a post in the Englishmen's room so they would not be caught napping.

Except, somehow, they must have. _Keep your heart cool,_ she hears in her mother's voice in the back of her mind, her mother's favorite colloquialism it seems. She looks around her current room to see if there is anything she could use as a weapon, other than of course the taser and pepper spray her lover gave her for her birthday, which she keeps in her handbag.

She fills said handbag with everything she can think of that will both fit and might prove helpful. Everyone is running around in the hallways, preoccupied, no one noticing her as she walks _and does not run_ to the Englishmen's room, though every cell in her body is crying out to sprint her way there. She doesn't know who might be on their enemies' side.

One of the things that occurred to her as she stayed calm and packed her handbag that could come in handy was a small water glass. She presses it against the door and her ear against the bottom of the glass, like she did when listening in on her parents when she was a child. Men are talking too low and too fast for her English to keep up, but the voices are not either Bond or Q. One is loud, like he is close to the door.

She sends a quick text with the emergency code phrase to the number her lover told her should be used in such a situation. Then she opens the door as hard and fast as she can, throwing the glass into the hallway to make the loudest noise and biggest mess she can at short notice, and screams, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY PATIENT?"

Rojana has no false bravado. She knows she will not win any fights. But it's a matter of raising an alarm as best she can, and buying the others time until help arrives as best she can.

Perhaps it is best that it does not come down to a physical struggle. The European-descent man steps over to her unconscious lover, slumped over in a chair, points the gun at her. "Come in, Nurse, and shut the door. No more screaming," he says in English, slowly.

The other man is Thai. "Don't make either of us angrier," he says, pointing his gun at _her_. "I'm already in a bad mood from you hitting me with the door."

"Did you give them benzodiazepines?" Rojana asks, keeping her heart cool.

"Why should we tell you?" asks the Thai one.

"If you want both the Englishmen alive and not just the younger one, you should tell me." Her own voice comes from so far away, yet is so clear. She reminds herself not to ever use the code names that would show she knows they are secret agents. The more ignorant she seems, the better. "It seems likely that you would have given them, maybe Clonazepam? Known as Klonopin as well. Because it is very common, and the younger Englishman has been prescribed it to help with the fear you have given him. So anyone you sent to drug them could have that medication and have a way to explain it."

"What is she saying? It's too fast for me," says the European.

The Thai man begins translating, but Rojana interrupts him. "Very sorry, Phi, but this is urgent. The other Englishman has been drinking alcohol, and mixing high doses of benzodiazepines with alcohol is a classic way to commit suicide. He is at great risk of dying if you do not let me give him a shot of flumazenil right now."

After this has been explained to the European as succinctly as possible, the European says what Rojana thinks are curse words. "Can't risk him dying; he's too useful. He's disarmed in any case and we have hostages. Do you have any of that antidote with you, Nurse?"

"Yes; it is standard if a traumatized patient with suicide attempt risk is prescribed Clonazepam that their attending nurse carry it," Rojana lies. She thinks it's a solid, plausible lie. That is why she happened to have it on hand, but it is not standard procedure. 

"All right," says the Thai man. "No sudden moves."

Even with the stories she has heard, Rojana is impressed by how quickly Bond wakes up after the injection. He looks around once, eyes darting, whispers, "Take cover," and does what he does best.

The only thing that surprises her, really - once both attackers are groaning, incapacitated bundles of hurt on the floor - is that Bond rushes to Q's side, pulls the tape off his mouth, and asks, "Permission to hug?"

"G-granted," stammers Q.

.....

Later, much much later after so many other necessary things have happened, and her lover is doing a thousand secret-agent things as if she is absolutely fine and always has been, Bond is sitting by a finally-asleep-again Q. He asks Rojana, "Is there any particular reason you gave me the antidote and not Nong?"

"If I was wrong it would have given you a heart attack," Rojana says, apologetic yet decisive.

"Worth it," he says simply, looking down at Q with an unreadable expression.

.....

It is decided that though more of the terrorist cell that was behind Q's first abduction has been discovered thanks to their second attempt, and promptly dealt with, it is possible some remain at large.

Bond tells Q softly as Q stirs the next morning, "You're in luck. They've decided it's too risky to put you on a plane home anytime soon, but if we go by ship we will both be a difficult-to-hit moving target and by the time we actually reach England Agent 004 should have rooted out the entire syndicate."

Q nods sleepily. "You're coming with me?"

"Of course. So are Nong and Rojana, actually, on loan from the Thai government as recompense for their cock-up. The person who should have - not Nong, it wasn't her job - hadn't screened the man who refilled our cooler every day, and he was paid off to put the overdose of Clonazepam into the water."

"Why didn't it affect me?"

"Apparently the more distressed, anxious, or panicking a person is, the less Clonazepam makes them sleepy and the more it simply brings them down to a normal level. Hence the therapeutic value." Bond pauses. "I won't go into what this may mean in your case if you don't want me to."

"Appreciated. So all four of us on a ship? Sounds like it could be either a bit dull or entirely too exciting."

"May I touch you?"

This time, Q does not ask where. "Yes."

Bond runs a hand over Q's cheek, his fingers warm, his touch light. "You can go back to sleep now. You've been astoundingly brave and I know you're exhausted. Don't open your eyes just yet."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sequel will be entitled "just because we work", and take place entirely on the ship - not particularly bloody big, but a ship all the same - transporting Q, Bond, Nong, and Rojana to the UK. They will be joined by Eve Moneypenny, hooray!
> 
> Updates will be less regular than for this one, because finals and so on, but this is going to happen. The series title will be "But Now I've Got You".
> 
> Fic titles and the series title are from "Don't Let Go" by Miles Fisher.  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuk39nMFCzo
> 
> Will tomorrow be better  
> When yesterday things got worse?  
> Just when I'm moving forward  
> You go and put me in reverse
> 
> And just because we were  
> That don't mean that we are meant to be  
> No, but who cares what tomorrow brings  
> If it can't make sense of you and me?
> 
> But now I've got you  
> And I can't imagine any day without you  
> It makes me wanna shout, and I'm singin'
> 
> Oh-oh, oh-oh  
> Hold on, don't let go  
> Don't open your eyes just yet  
> Oh-oh, oh-oh  
> Hold on, don't let go  
> It's not time to wake up yet...


End file.
